


All the Steps You'll Take, and All You'll Overcome

by ShowMeAHero



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Children, Domestic, Domestic Fluff, F/M, Fluff, Gen, Humor, Kid Fic, Marriage, Parent-Child Relationship, Parenthood, Post-Canon, Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-20
Updated: 2017-10-20
Packaged: 2019-01-20 11:28:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,306
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12431877
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShowMeAHero/pseuds/ShowMeAHero
Summary: A glimpse into the life of Evangeline, the Inquisitor; the Iron Bull, her husband; and Sulevin, their daughter. Floors are painted, asses are kicked, and the family that laughs together, stays together.





	All the Steps You'll Take, and All You'll Overcome

**Author's Note:**

> I'm just straight-up trash at this point.
> 
> Title taken from ["I Wanna Be The One"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APNJSP-lqmM) by Fun..

The Iron Bull was a warrior, a reaver, a mercenary, and a threat. Anybody who crossed him once didn’t live to do it again. Any enemy who came across him in battle died before they got the opportunity to regret it. He cut down any danger in his path; no hazard had ever stopped him in his entire life. He was dominant, a leader, a cut above the rest, towering above everyone who passed by him.

He was also a husband, and a father to a three-year-old. Said three-year-old was currently sitting on the floor of her bedroom, painting a mural on the floor with her fingers, dressed only in her underthings to avoid getting her any messier than she already was.

“What’s that, Sulevin?” Bull asked, leaning over her to look at her portrait. It was a complete disaster of art, surrounded by other past disasters, long since dried.

“You and me and Mama,” Sulevin replied, smearing a blob of blue across a spot of grey. She wiped at her face, trying to push her hair out of her eyes without getting paint in them, and Bull reached down to gather up her hair at the top of her head and tie it into a bun for her. A few orange wisps still sprang free, but Sulevin seemed unbothered by them.

“She looks beautiful,” Bull said, sitting cross-legged on the floor beside her, assuming that a green smear with a orange gob of paint on the top was his wife. Sulevin lifted her hands, admiring her own artwork before she looked up at her father and smiled.

“Thank you,” she said, deceivingly polite. She analyzed her painting a little longer, making a couple of last-minute smudges, before she held her messy hands up to her father. “Help, please?”

“Sure thing, kid,” he said, lifting her up by the back of her pants and carrying her into the washroom. She stood obediently still as he untied her hair and scrubbed her down with a cloth and a basin of water, making the leftover water run colorful (and, eventually, brown from the mixing) with the paints. Now cleaned and fully scrubbed, face clear of any remaining mess, his daughter beamed up at him. He pushed her stray hairs back from her heavily-freckled face; she licked his palm.

“Oh, why are you disgusting?” he teasingly complained, and she laughed, sprinting from the washroom back into her bedroom. He heaved himself back to his feet and followed after her, eventually finding her tugging her dress back on backwards. “Get over here, you dumbass.”

“Mama said you’re not supposed to call me that,” Sulevin said, her voice muffled from getting her head stuck in the sleeve-hole of the dress.

“Mama’s not here right now,” Bull replied, “and you’re being a dumbass.”

“So?” Sulevin shot back. Bull tugged the dress off of her and slipped it back on the right way around. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome, Ellie,” Bull replied. She hopped up to sit on the bed beside him, clambering into his lap, reaching up to tangle her fingers in the string of the necklace he had on. He took the opportunity to look her over; she had received the combined physical traits of both of her parents, in the end, and Bull thought she was just fascinating to look at. She had bright, pale-green eyes and a mass of thick, curly orange hair from her mother, but the horns peeking out from that tangle came definitely from her father. Her pointed ears were delicate and small enough to likely have come from her mother, but the light-grey color of her skin was all Bull, despite her mother’s freckles covering nearly every inch of it.

“You look just like your mother,” Bull said, and Sulevin raised an eyebrow at him. “Especially when you do that.”

“I do not,” she argued. “I look like me.”

“That’s true,” he agreed. “Can’t say you don’t. But-”

“No buts!” she exclaimed. She opened her mouth to say something else just as she heard the door to their little home open and shut downstairs, and she looked up at Bull with the kind of excitement nobody over the age of six could muster.

“Mama’s home!” Sulevin screeched, diving to the floor and taking off at a sprint. Bull heaved himself up again and followed after her, trying - and failing - to take light steps on the stairs. Sure enough, Evangeline was still in the doorway, now with an armful of their toddler.

“What did you do today?” she was asking their child, evidently having been in the process of taking her coat and boots off, as she had one sock foot and one still in her shoe. “Why are your hands wet?”

“Daddy had to wash me,” Sulevin explained. She let Bull lift her out of her mother’s arms with only a frown. “Dad _dy.”_

“Let her undress, you gremlin,” Bull said. Sulevin laughed and squirmed free of his grip, dropping to the ground. Bull took Evangeline’s coat when she shrugged out of it, and smiled when she kicked her boots aside and yanked her scarf off.

“I _hate_ the clothes they make me wear,” she sighed, unbuttoning the vest as quickly as her fingers could go. She finally stripped all of her clothes off of her upper body and dropped them to the ground. _“Maker,_ finally. It’s been a long day.”

“I can tell,” Bull said, snatching up the clothes she dropped and tossing them over a chair. Sulevin led Evangeline by the hand into their den and gently pushed her towards the sofa, which Evangeline gladly took, sprawling across it on her back. Sulevin scurried up next to her, curling into her side, smoothing one tiny hand against her mother’s swollen belly.

“How’s the baby?” Sulevin asked eagerly, stroking her mother’s freckled skin. Evangeline ran her fingers through her daughter’s hair, yawning.

“Doing fine, sweetheart,” Evangeline told her. “No worse for wear. The baby doesn’t mind the meetings half as much as I do.”

“You don’t have to keep going to the meetings,” Bull pointed out, falling into his armchair. He leaned over to light the logs in their fireplace. “I’ll probably kick Cullen’s ass if he keeps making you, actually.”

“Don’t say ‘ass,’” Evangeline said absentmindedly, rubbing the bridge of her nose between two fingers.

“Daddy called me a dumbass today,” Sulevin said. Bull frowned at her, but Sulevin just stuck her tongue out. “I drew a painting of you.”

“I can’t wait to see it, Ell,” Evangeline murmured, still combining the toddler’s hair.

“Daddy and I had a tea party, too,” Sulevin continued. She smothered a yawn by her mother’s hip, curling further into her warmth. “He was the princess and I was the warrior.”

“Sounds like quite the tea party,” Evangeline commented, turning her head to look at Bull. Bull stood and crossed to her, starting to pull the pins out of her long, thick orange hair, letting it fall free. She sighed in relief.

“It was,” he assured her, still pulling out the pins and ties. “Not every day a warrior crashes a tea party and spills sugar cubes on a princess.”

“I said I was sorry,” Sulevin grumbled, her eyes shut as she frowned. Bull pocketed the pins and ties and lifted Evangeline’s legs by the ankles, settling on the sofa under her. He dropped her legs back over his lap, and she smiled.

“Let me know if you want me to kick Cullen’s ass,” Bull told her, and Evangeline smiled.

“I can kick Cullen’s ass if I need to,” she assured him.

“You won’t.”

“But I _could,”_ she reiterated. “He doesn’t want me going for much longer anyways.”

“Hmm, it’s almost like he knows something about this,” Bull said. Evangeline nudged him with her heal. “We all remember last time, Evie.”

“Yeah, well, _this_ time I’ll try not to have your child on the map room floor, but it’s not like I planned it last time,” Evangeline murmured. Bull reached out with one big hand and shifted her around carefully, rearranging her so her head was in his lap. Sulevin looked up at him with bleary eyes.

“What are you _doing,”_ she said grumpily. Bull reached out and pulled her in between himself, Evangeline, and the back of the sofa, and she snuggled right back in, yawning.

“That’s right, you little shit,” Bull said softly. Evangeline elbowed him, grinning even as she did so.

“At least try to be a responsible parent,” Evangeline said. She then frowned, shifting slightly. “Your child is a menace.”

“Don’t I know it,” Bull said, flicking his daughter on the forehead. Sulevin stuck her tongue out at him without even opening her eyes.

“Your other child,” Evangeline clarified. She reached up for Bull’s wrist, guiding his massive hand towards her middle. He dropped his palm over the peak, wrapping his fingers around towards her waist, waiting patiently until he felt a nudge against him.

“He’s gonna rip his way out,” Bull declared. Evangeline rolled her eyes.

“If he does, you’re having the next one,” Evangeline said, and Bull snorted.

“Who says we’re having a next one?” Bull asked. Evangeline glanced up at him with disbelief.

“Who was the one who told me he wanted ten children minimum after Ellie was born?” Evangeline shot back. Sulevin peered up at them, frowning.

“That’s too many,” Sulevin told them. “You need to pay more attention to _me.”_

“Oh, are you not getting enough attention?” Evangeline asked, tickling her daughter’s side. “Do I not devote enough time to you?”

Sulevin giggled, burying her face under her mother’s arm. Evangeline lightly scratched her back, up and down, soothingly.

“Anyways,” Bull said, “he’s _strong_. He’s going to be a warrior.”

“What makes you so sure this is a boy, anyways?” Evangeline asked. “Ellie was tougher than this one by a mile anyways.”

“We’ll see,” Bull said, like he had any clue what the baby was going to be. Evangeline sighed, placing her one free hand over the back of Bull’s, apparently content. She yawned, her eyes slipping shut. “Long day?”

“The longest,” she murmured back. Sulevin seemed already halfway to sleep, but she needed the rest anyways.

“Do you want me to kill Cullen?” he asked softly. “Because I can. He won’t even know what hit him.”

“If you’re killing anyone,” Evangeline replied, “kill Josephine. She’s the one who has me keep coming in. _But,”_ she continued, before Bull could say anything, “she also lets me nap in her office. So, win-win.”

“Cullen doesn’t let you nap in his office?” Bull asked. Evangeline snorted.

“Cullen has a hole in his roof,” she told him. “Plus, he _lives_ in his office. And his bed is so uncomfortable.”

“How did you-”

“And anyways,” she said, ignoring his _perfectly valid_ question, “I am the Inquisitor. I’m kind of supposed to be there.”

“You’re also kind of supposed to be growing our half-Qunari monster child,” Bull reminded her. “I’d do it for you if I could, but, alas.”

“‘Alas’ means ‘dirt’ in Elven,” Evangeline told him.

“Cullen is _alas,”_ Bull said. Evangeline smacked his chest.

“You’re horrible,” Evangeline said. Bull scratched his fingernails along her scalp, and she sighed, relaxed.

“So are you,” he whispered. She grinned.

“You’re both horrible,” Sulevin grumbled. Evangeline tickled her again, mercilessly, before Bull separated them.

“How about ‘Enansal’?” Evangeline asked, after a moment of soft silence. “Means ‘blessing’.”

“No child of ours is a blessing,” Bull said. Sulevin was, blissfully, already asleep, so she had no comment on that. Evangeline still nudged him.

“Or ‘Hamin,’” she said. “‘Rest.’”

“Again,” he said, “are you just taunting me?”

She hummed to herself, and fell silent again. After a long moment, she said, “‘Samahl’? Means ‘laugh.’”

Bull opened his mouth to make a comment, then paused. “Hmm. That one’s not bad.”

“What an honor,” Evangeline murmured.

“I still prefer ‘Ataashi,’” he told her. She sighed.

“I’m never going to do that,” she said. Bull felt another kick against his palm. “Shh, da’len. Settle down.”

“Imekari,” Bull murmured, running his fingertips over her bare skin. The child kicked his hand again, then settled. Sulevin sighed against Bull’s side and snored once, curling up into his hip. Bull returned his attention to scratching lightly over his wife’s scalp.

“Eight more after this one,” Evangeline said softly. Bull smiled.

“At least,” he said, and she smiled right back, looking up at him with happy eyes. “If I kill Cullen, maybe we’ll have time for fifteen.”

“Get rid of them all and we can have fifty,” Evangeline promised.

“Don’t tease me,” he said. She wriggled against him, getting more comfortable, and finally settled down. She tipped her head back to kiss his palm. “I’ll put fifty babies in you.”

“Why stop there?” she said. “Let’s just take in all of Thedas while we’re at it.”

“Oh, that’s no fun,” Bull said. “The fun is _making_ them.”

“Can I please sleep?” Sulevin grumbled.

“Do you want forty-nine brothers and sisters?” Bull asked. Sulevin squinted up at him.

“Of course not,” Sulevin said. “Please let me sleep.”

“Gotcha, kid,” he said, and Sulevin settled back in. Bull tousled her hair and settled one large hand over her back, his palm stretching the entire width of it, soft from her clothes and baby-skin against his scars.

“I love you,” Evangeline murmured. “I think you’d be a good father for fifty children.”

“Thank you?” Bull said. Evangeline kissed his stomach and relaxed, closing her eyes. “Do you want dinner?”

“Not yet,” she told him. “Later.”

He looked down at her, her settled form. Her soft, freckled skin over her strong muscles and her swollen belly. Her child, nestled between them, their orange hair tangling together. He stroked Evangeline’s hair back from her face.

“Later,” he agreed. “Rest for now.”

**Author's Note:**

> I have a blog now to request imagines - I just like to make people happy. Submit requests [here!](https://imagine-in-the-fandoms.tumblr.com/ask)
> 
> I also actually wrote a book. It was a long road but, I did it! Ta-da It's about two young ladies who hunt aliens and fall in love. If you want to read it, shoot me a message!
> 
> You can follow me on Twitter at [@nicoIodeon](https://twitter.com/nicoIodeon) or on Tumblr at [andillwriteyouatragedy](http://andillwriteyouatragedy.tumblr.com/).


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